It seems like AMD has put its full faith in the x86 ecosystem, as the firm claims that the architecture is right on par with ARM, even in areas such as energy efficiency.
ARM’s Hype On The Windows Platform Was ‘Short-Lived’ As AMD & Intel Came Up With Better x86 Solutions
There’s no doubt that ARM has seen massive popularity in recent times, primarily driven by initiatives such as ‘Windows on ARM’ and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite SKUs. The reason why ARM SoCs saw huge adoption in recent times is that the platform was claimed to be a viable alternative to the x86 ecosystem, even excelling in areas such as AI power and energy efficiency, but according to AMD’s discussion at the IFA 2025, it seems like x86 has made a comeback. Talking to the media (via ComputerBase), Team Red believes there’s no viable advantage to using ARM over x86.
Speaking of efficiency, the topic of ARM vs. x86 came up here, as it does every year. AMD, almost like Intel recently, declared that the myth that x86 can’t be efficient was refuted last year. Both AMD Ryzen and Intel Core can offer extremely long runtimes in notebooks, while accessing the entire x86 ecosystem. Ultimately, the overall package doesn’t offer an advantage for ARM.
For those unaware, ARM has been the primary architecture for Apple’s M-series SoCs and, more recently, Qualcomm’s laptop chips. It was claimed to dethrone x86 dominance since Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips brought decent performance improvements. However, since then, both Intel and AMD have ramped up their respective mobile solutions, and in particular, Intel/AMD has made several efforts in the APU segment. Intel’s Lunar Lake chips also brought huge upgrades to NPU capabilities and power efficiency, and AMD’s momentum was also a boost.
AMD’s newest Strix Point and Strix Halo APUs were at their best in perf/watt figures, so they were massively adopted in compact machines such as laptops, mini-PCs, and handhelds. More importantly, AMD’s flagship Ryzen 9 AI MAX 395+ offers overall TOPS of up to 126, way higher than ARM solutions, which showed that x86 did manage to kill the ‘short-lived’ hype around the Windows on ARM narrative.
This certainly doesn’t mean the end-game for ARM right now, but x86 has a long time in the consumer hardware markets, mainly driven by next-gen lineups such as Intel’s Panther Lake or AMD’s Medusa Point.